In hockey’s early days, if you took a puck to the kisser you got stitched up and put back on the ice. No goalie would dare wear a protective mask — fans considered it unmanly. Coaches worried their netminders would lose their courage. Reporters echoed these judgments in their stories.

 But after stopping a hard wrist shot with his face early in the first period of a game against the Rangers in 1959, Montreal Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante refused to return without the crude, flesh-toned fiberglass mask he used in practice.

The press fussed at him, but Plante believed playing without a mask was like a skydiver jumping without a parachute. Plante’s ghoulish face cover went on to win over goalies, became an enduring symbol of the game and even evolved into a high-tech artistic statement for today’s goaltenders.

Google has rolled out a nifty new Maps update for mobile that brings better traffic alerts that will be issued while you drive, and the ability to find alternate routes. The update comes just in time for Memorial Day, which is one of the busiest driving days of the year.

We may only have to wait until August to get our first official glimpse of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, according to a new research note by well-connected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Don’t get too excited though — even though Kuo thinks the iPhone will be unveiled a month earlier than usual, he says it will be released in its usual September slot.

The respected KGI Securities analyst also sheds light on who is set to build the new iPhones, a few of the devices’ key features, and some details about the forthcoming 12.9-inch iPad. Check them out below.

If the multiple worlds theory of quantum mechanics is correct, there is a universe out there somewhere in which Apple slavishly copies every move Samsung makes in the handset department.

A new iPhone 7 concept by designer Hasan Kaymak shows us what that parallel world would look like by demonstrating an iPhone with an edge-to-edge display much like the one Samsung uses for its current Galaxy S6 Edge.

As pointless gimmicks go, it’s actually a pretty neat one.

If you’re having problems with Apple’s iCloud services, don’t worry — you’re not alone!

On its status page, Apple is currently showing yellow alerts for Back to My Mac, Find My iPhone, iCloud Account & Sign-In, iCloud Backup, Drive, Keychain, Mail, iMovie Theater, iWork, and Photos — meaning that services are either running slowly or are down. While not all users are experiences these problems, Apple acknowledges that many are.

When Icelandic developer Thorsteinn Fridriksson unleashed QuizUp on the world in late 2013, the last thing he expected was that the trivia app’s questions would turn into the nerdy equivalent of Cupid’s arrows. However, a surprising number of people who fell in love with the app also fell in love with each other.

“Very soon after we launched, we started hearing about people connecting on the platform,” Fridriksson told Cult of Mac. “You’d be amazed at how many QuizUp couples there are — people who literally met each other because they shared interests in the game.”

Now QuizUp is poised to pivot, taking advantage of its innate ability to connect players — whether for love, friendship or just a killer trivia smackdown. Today’s update marks the biggest and riskiest change in QuizUp’s history, as the multiple-choice game relaunches with a new focus on social networking.

Crazily enough, it just might work.

Promising users access to as many free movies as they wanted via a torrent-streaming website, Popcorn Time’s newly-launched web app was as sweet as a bag of popcorn — and lasted about as long.

Launching just this week, Popcorn Time on Your Browser’s servers were apparently overwhelmed as the site went viral quicker than anyone had anticipated.

Yes, a site offering high quality streaming Hollywood movies for no money whatsoever proved popular — we’re shocked too!

Photo-hosting site Flickr is taking some heat today over some unfortunate tags automatically showing up on users’ pictures. Specifically, the auto-tagging program has described people (of various races) as “animals” and identified concentration camps as “jungle gyms” and “sport.”

The auto-tag system remains in place, but some users want it gone.

The researchers at Yahoo labs have just quantified the use of filters on digital photos. Say what you want about the death of the art of photography – filters will get your photos noticed.

“We find two groups of serious and casual photographers among filter users,” write the researchers at Yahoo Labs. “The serious see filters as correction tools and prefer milder effects. Casual photographers, by contrast, use filters to significantly transform their photos with bolder effects.”

The best filters for engagement, however, tended to be the ones that increase warmth, exposure, and contrast, rather than the cooler, more obscuring ones.

This is big news if you’re looking to get popular on sites like Flickr and Instagram.

If you’re trying to update your Apple Watch software to the latest version, you might get stuck. Some users are reporting that the update starts and then just seems to hang there, like a diver never quite ready to take the plunge.

If your update is hanging without any error message, the fix might be simpler than you thought.

Apple Watch hasn’t even been out for a month yet but it may have already claimed its first victim in the war for your wrist.

Smartwatch maker Pebble is in big trouble and has applied for a $5 million loan from a Silicon Valley bank to stay afloat, according to a new report that claims the company is having a hard time maintaining growth.

This post is sponsored by Systweak Software, maker of Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro.

There was a time when people could keep track of their photos with a few shoeboxes in the closet. Now we live in the digital age where an average person will take thousands of photos each year — that’s a lot of shoeboxes.

Digital photography uses a lot less paper, but it still creates a big mess. Maybe that explains why Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro is currently ranked No. 7 on Apple’s list of the top 10 paid downloads in the Mac App Store. Its popularity speaks to just how common the problem of unwanted duplicate photos is.

Short on room space? LG has just busted through the thinness limit on massive screened television sets and unveiled its proof of concept HDTV that’s as thin as paper.

Sure, it’s not in production yet, and will likely cost way too much for the average person to buy at first, but a press-on wallpaper television set is pretty high on our list of wants.

An iOS developer claims the latest version of their app has been rejected by Apple solely because a screenshot dared to mention the forbidden word “Android.”

It’s hardly noticeable — you’ll need to squint to see it — but Apple allegedly wants it gone just in case it reminds iPhone and iPad users that other platforms are available.

Apple is expected to unveil its huge overhaul of Beats Music in just a few weeks at WWDC but Spotify is firing shots first in the battle for music streaming dominance with a huge update for its iPhone app.

Spotify took the wraps off its new music experience at a keynote this morning, revealing a new Now start page for music discovery to go along with additions such as podcasts, video clips, original content, and an awesome new feature for joggers that matches songs to your running tempo.

Here’s a rundown of the new features:

Just when you thought you were safe from ceaseless notifications from Farmville players, Facebook has let it be known that it is planning to add gaming apps to its secondary Messenger app. You know, the one you had to install on your iPhone because they took messaging functions out of the main Facebook mobile app.

Facebook is actively talking with game developers about using the Messenger platform to deliver gaming experiences, which would then lead to more interactions with the Messenger app, and probably revenues, as most of Facebook’s non advertising revenue comes from third-party games.

The only Apple Watches I’ve seen in the wild so far have been strapped to men’s wrists, and according to one of the world’s top Apple analysts, that could be a bad indicator for the digital timepieces’ popularity.

In a new note to investors, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has cut his 2015 expectations for Apple Watch sales from 30 million down to just 15 million after research found that Apple Watch has attracted mostly men.

Using your smartphone while scoffing fast food will leave your shiny display covered in grease and grime, but thanks to KFC, there’s a better way to live-tweet what you’re eating.

The finger-licking chicken giant has designed a paper-thin Bluetooth keyboard called the Tray Typer, which lets you text, tweet, and even get stuff done over dinner without having to touch your smartphone at all.

The biggest city in Silicon Valley is about to land the world’s biggest tech company.

Apple is considering expanding into north San Jose to lease more office space, even though the company’s gigantic space ship campus is scheduled to be completed next year and house more than 13,00 employees.

Google is getting ready to unveil a new online picture sharing and storage service at the company’s upcoming Google I/O software developers conference later this month.

Not linked with Google+, the tool will supposedly allow users to post pictures to Facebook and Twitter in a more straightforward way than is currently possible through Google. It will also represent another stab on Google’s part at the photo-sharing market currently dominated by Instagram, Snapchat and Flickr.

Eager to get your hands on the new Apple Watch? In the market for a new iPhone? We’re about to make your day.

Your garden may be seasonal, but part of it can live long and prosper with a set of Star Trek garden gnomes from the warped minds at Think Geek.

There are four, including a dead yeoman in a red shirt, lying on a slab that says, “Join Starfleet they said. It’d be fun they said.”

Imagine if Mr. Scott in the transporter room mixed up the energy patterns of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock with elves and you would have the Think Geek creations.

Microsoft has inadvertently leaked plans to release a new chat app for iPhone called Flow, which will allow users to have “rapid email conversations.” The service will be a part of Outlook, but it will focus on quick communication with “no subject lines, salutations, or signatures.”

Touch ID made unlocking your phone faster than previously, but you know what’s more secure than fingerprints as authentication? Brainwaves.

That’s according to Blair Armstrong of the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and Language in Spain, who feels that the most secure type of biometrics technology could one day involve measuring the brain response of individual tech users to various words or acronyms.

In news that is likely to cause all manner of headaches around Hollywood, Popcorn Time — the streaming torrent service often described as “Netflix for pirates” — is now easier to access than ever, thanks to a new website.

But how long will it last?